Whilst This Machine
by bj
Summary: Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. Bright/Colin and Colin/Amy.


it's: whilst this machine  
by: bj  
in sum: forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.  
label: bright. bright/colin, colin/amy, amy/ephram.  
rating: pg. compared to the show: pg13. one four-letter word.  
sissies: pilot, "the kissing bridge," "we hold these truths."  
legalities: don't own, don't sue.  
i say: title/summary from "hamlet." for jeff, who said it shouldn't be done.  
archive: ask and it (probably) shall be given.  
you say: all comments appreciated, answered, and archived. allcanadiangirl@lycos.com or review.  
  
  
Whilst This Machine  
  
June. Colin's hands on the steering wheel, Bright's hands on the bottle. He's driving south on an unpaved road and Bright wishes he'd just keep going. South, south, out of the county, out of the state, they're already past the town limit, south to New Mexico and maybe old Mexico: tequila and bright colours and not an evergreen in sight. Green water, blue ocean, sand.  
  
The truck noses onto a highway and Colin grins. Bright puts another one back. South. Hot in the summer, hot in the winter, no snow, no school, just palm trees and brown skin and Colin. They'd get wet in the surf and drunk in the shade and it could be like Amy never existed.  
  
Colin chokes the gearshift, grabs it like he's making a hard decision. Bright knows this isn't difficult. The truck coughs and growls into reverse and Colin spins the tires a second before they are careening back down the logging road.  
  
Back inside the town limits, north, north.  
  
Colin loves Everwood because it is his kingdom. He is Hamlet before tragedy and Amy is Ophelia with flowers in her hair. They are royalty and nothing cruel or dark or bloody will ever happen to them. Bright calls himself Laertes and he's not going to let it happen.  
  
  
  
July. When the last scabs have flaked from Bright's hands and his face, he climbs the fence of the impound yard. He walks around the truck, not touching it. He looks in the driver's window and tries to remember why he didn't let Colin drive. He loved it when Colin drove because he went so fast and so far and he wasn't afraid to go places where they hadn't been. He wasn't afraid to go so deep into the woods Bright thought they were lost.  
  
Bright kicks the flat tires on each corner and wants to leave something here or take something home. He reaches through the broken passenger window and touches the dash. Last thing: Colin's hands grabbing for purchase on the black leather.  
  
  
  
August. This is the worst of the bad months because Amy starts talking to him again. She asks him to talk about Colin with her, she says it's healthy. He can't take her voice, her memories, her sweet, superior smile: girlfriend before best friend.  
  
He wants to tell her about Mexico to make her shut up, about the back of the truck and their open flies, about trembling fingers. She didn't know either of them as well as she imagined, they knew each other better. Bright wants to throw it in her face: he's held Colin's dick in his hand, and he wasn't scared.  
  
She's not smart enough to know that she would have won anyway. She would never realise Colin chose her every time.  
  
She's still got flowers in her hair so he uses silence to push her away instead.  
  
  
  
September. He cuts class. He goes to the hospital instead of to hockey games and he stands outside Colin's room with his hands on the glass. He stands alone and watches him breathe, watches his own breath condense above the net of safety wire.  
  
In his brain there's no room left for school: just bus schedules and when the Harts will be there and when Amy will be there. Avoidance is not a side effect of grief and guilt, it's an art.  
  
He walks the logging roads alone, he walks up into the foothills with a quilted vest on and no hat. He sits on the kissing bridge and wonders if he wants to die. He's well aware that he should want to be lying in the hospital, comatose, but he's afraid Colin wouldn't be standing at the window watching him. He's afraid Colin would be with Amy, talking about him, leaving Mexico and salty skin behind. He'd rather be dead, he figures. He'd rather be dead than a drunken experiment.  
  
He presses bodies against walls, one body in the snow.  
  
  
  
October. Amy pushing furniture against the walls of the living room, rolling up the rug, dancing.  
  
Bright sits on the stairs and watches her arms against the white curtains, her reflection above the fireplace, the way her ankles are strong enough to defy gravity. He watches for an hour, he thinks about lies. Colin was driving, never done anything, she loves him, stay away from her.  
  
He had a dream about the accident: space, the physics of bodies in motion, hitting the ground, eyes opening. Accusing faces and Ephram Brown with a black eye.  
  
The piano ends and Amy wipes her forehead with a towel. He's not going to let this happen again. She's not going to drown.  
  
  
End. 


End file.
